


Sweet Sixteen

by Petra



Series: Sparrowhawk [5]
Category: DCU - Comicverse, Supreme Power (comic)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Crisis Jason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-18
Updated: 2005-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-11 19:19:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/116018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petra/pseuds/Petra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason has always been invested in rituals and rites of passage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet Sixteen

**Author's Note:**

> [](http://ficbyzee.livejournal.com/profile)[**ficbyzee**](http://ficbyzee.livejournal.com/), [](http://brown-betty.livejournal.com/profile)[**brown_betty**](http://brown-betty.livejournal.com/), [](http://cyanei.livejournal.com/profile)[**cyanei**](http://cyanei.livejournal.com/) and [](http://holli.livejournal.com/profile)[**holli**](http://holli.livejournal.com/) all encouraged me in this. It is, therefore, not my fault.

"So," Jason says, shrugging into his leather jacket, "can I, um, borrow the car keys?"

Kyle raises an eyebrow at him. "You won't be sixteen years old until four-fifteen this afternoon, according to your birth certificate."

Jason blinks at him.

Kyle shakes his head. "And you've only been driving for the last year and a half. Why is this an important rite of passage?"

Jason grins at him, and it's as bright as ever, and perhaps a little more special now than it once was. He is not a child anymore, legally or in temperament. "It's the principle of the thing."

"Like Kwanzaa."

"Yeah, like that. Except that this is my big celebration." Jason winks at him -- it looks a little strange, sometimes, and then Kyle wonders what the exact amount of time is that one needs to spend in a mask before one can be diagnosed with psychosis of some sort. "So it's more important. To me. And you don't get to say I don't get to party."

Kyle touches the bridge of his nose as if he has a headache. He doesn't, yet -- and Jason has caused many fewer of those in the last months than he used to -- but it's not a habit he's bothered to break. "Yes. You may borrow the car keys."

"Awesome!" Jason says, and the alacrity with which he springs up and snags them from Kyle's hand speaks of well-maintained gymnastic skill, despite the several inches that Jason has grown lately.

"You and your rituals," Kyle says.

Jason beams at him and says, "Just be glad I don't ask for a birthday spanking," and runs out the door.

"God, Chickenhawk, will you ever learn?" Kyle says, but he says it under his breath. Then he gets out a different set of keys and goes to the office.

~~~

There is cake at dinner, and Jason is extremely pleased by it. It doesn't say his name, but it's spice cake with cream cheese frosting.

The cook is entirely too fond of him.

"This is the best birthday ever," Jason says when he finishes his second huge piece of cake.

"I've never found them particularly memorable occasions," Kyle says. "What was special?"

"Well, Travonne -- you remember I introduced you last month -- he gave me a card, and Mrs. Webb made my Spanish class sing to me, and Brianna -- the one who lives down the block, not the one from the suburbs, you remember -- decorated my locker with LaToya." Jason scrapes up the last crumb of cake and smiles. "It was really *sweet* of them."

"They decorated your locker with what?" The prospect of breaking-and-entering is always there, even at school.

"Oh, they put up signs on it -- and on their lockers, too -- saying 'Happy Birthday Jason!' You know I'm pretty much the only Jason in my grade, so people were coming up to me all day long and saying hi and happy birthday." Jason tucks one of the flyaway strands of hair that has escaped from his ponytail behind his ear. "It felt really good. Like they're all my friends, even though most of them aren't."

"Defacing school property," Kyle says. "A sure sign of fair-weather friendship."

Jason laughs. "It was only taped on, and it wasn't vandalism. The janitors weren't even mad about it. Not like Icesis's birthday when her friends brought in *confetti*. That was a big mess."

"I can imagine they'd be less than thrilled." Kyle shakes his head. "If you're done with dinner, we should go."

"Oh, sure." Jason gets up. "I mean -- if --"

Kyle raises an eyebrow at him and forestalls any whining. "Time and tide wait for no man."

"Right," Jason says -- and it's the same as always. When he gets disappointed, it's like someone turned off a light in the room.

Kyle shakes his head, ignoring the feeling of gloom -- Jason is dangerously, though not metahumanly, contagious in his moods -- and walks toward the elevator to the garage. Jason keeps up with him, though there is less of a spring in his step than might otherwise be there.

"Where will we be going tonight?" Jason asks, once the doors are shut. Not as promptly as normal, but at least he knows his duty well enough not to sulk indefinitely.

"The south side," Kyle says. "There are things we need to deal with there."

"Is the Polish gang back, the -- I still can't pronounce it."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Kyle says. The security system performs its biometric scan in a flash of purple light. Then the elevator doors open on the most private level of the garage. "We'll see." He strides toward the uniform closet and hears Jason beside him.

On the job, as brisk as he needs to be.

It makes Jason's shout of surprise when he takes out the costume for tonight all the sweeter. "New armoring!" he says. "And the colors are -- more muted. Cool. And they're so *matte.* I love it. And -- whoa, hey, new guns." He picks one up and twirls it, which would have been a hair-raising concept, not so very long ago. "I -- you really think I can do this?"

Kyle takes out his cowl and doesn't smile at him, because Nighthawk does not smile. He finds the newest set of keys and tosses it to Jason. "You'd better be able to."

Jason catches it without even looking -- he's still got the gun -- and then he figures out what he has in his hand. "Oh." He sets the gun down and bounces over to hug Kyle, as exuberantly as he ever has. "Thank you thank you thank you thank you oh god --"

He's much taller than the last time he decided that Kyle needed to be hugged, though he may not be fully grown yet. It's far stranger than being embraced by a little boy, and yet -- it's still Jason.

It's tolerable.

Until his impulsiveness leads him to kiss Kyle.

It is not, in itself, a surprise. Jason has never been subtle about his gender expression or his close friendships, and this is only logical.

Before Kyle can manage to tamp down the utterly irrational and seductive desire to kiss him back, Jason pulls away. He's blushing so hard it seems like it ought to hurt. "Oh -- I'm sorry -- I --"

Kyle raises an eyebrow at him, bereft of any better defense. He should have pushed Jason away as soon as he saw the strike coming. "Where did that come from?"

Jason looks at the floor and bites his lip. "Um. Psychologically speaking? My id, I guess -- I'm really sorry. I know you -- aren't on the down-low."

"Not about this." Kyle hesitates a moment. Two moments. It would be extremely telling if Jason were actually paying any attention at the moment. It's lucky that he's not. "You're not involved with anyone who refers to their sex life as the 'down low,' are you?"

Jason looks up, startled. His eyes are so wide and damningly blue. "I -- no. I know better than *that.* I just -- I didn't *mean* to --"

"Stop babbling." The order comes out just as curt as it should, and Jason falls silent.

Just long enough for Kyle to silence the last accusatory voice of conscience and kiss him.

This is a much better kiss, once Jason comes out of shock enough to kiss him back. The previously introduced concept of hugging metamorphoses into something more akin to a clinch, and with both of them still unarmored, it is far more intimate than it could have been, had it happened only five minutes later.

Jason is whimpering, but as soon as he hears the sound of his voice echo off the wall, he quiets himself and shifts against Kyle. He is aroused in the instant and maddening way that adolescent boys have. "Oh," he says, between kisses, and the hormones rampaging through his body must be peaking.

There is no such excuse for Kyle's own arousal, nor for the way he's tangling his fingers in Jason's hair. He should let go. There are things to do.

It's Jason who says, "Patrol," when Kyle lets him come up for air.

"Yes," Kyle says. The quiet thrill of pride is almost completely buried under the louder shout of desire, but it is still there. Jason is not a foolish child anymore.

It justifies the next kiss, and the next.

"Please," Jason says, "stop -- I --"

Something seizes in Kyle's stomach. If he's misread --

Jason says, "We *really* have to go. And I'm going to come in my pants if you keep doing that."

Kyle coughs. "Oh." There are solutions -- there are ways around this --

He should have more allies.

What he has, in the costume box -- while Jason leans on the wall and tries to catch his breath -- are condoms.

They make Jason's eyes widen again. "Here? Now?"

"We have to go soon," Kyle says.

"That's --" Jason grins at him. "God, that's so you. I really love you."

Kyle snorts. "I can tell, Chickenhawk."

Jason pushes himself up from the wall and says, "Okay. Where are we going to do this?"

"Here," Kyle says, and --

It's Jason.

Blond-haired, blue-eyed, pale-skinned Jason, who has done more for him and for the community he has sworn to protect than any hundred men could have in the last three years.

Jason is not, cannot be, a nameless, soulless incarnation of oppression.

That makes it perfectly all right for Kyle to kneel. Because it's only --

Only Jason.

Who is hyperventilating. "Oh my god, you can't -- do you really want to -- I didn't know you even --"

Jason is not in the habit of wearing tight pants, and he must be in agony. Kyle relieves him of some of the pain, then tugs down his briefs. "I assure you, I don't do anything I don't want to do. And --" he tears open the condom and looks up at Jason while he puts it on. "Just -- shut up, Chickenhawk."


End file.
